To think this stat about the UK debt is spin and ask someone for a longer term graph??

Assuming these figures are real (we have to start somewhere, right!) and judging by the Conservative's position on austerity / debt / deficit etc. I am therefore concluding that there's an alternative infographic out there which would show the level of debt in 2016 as it would have been if Labour's spending / borrowing had continued at the same levels??

And that that figure is significantly higher than the 2106 debt figure quoted in this infographic?

Yes e1y1, I'm not arguing that the debt hasn't gone up - absolutely agree that it has.

But if you look at the chart I've found, you can see that the rate of growth was slowed when the coalition came into power and that it is believable to imagine the 'curve' of this graph pretty soon taking the turn into decreasing the overall debt.

That would never have happened if Labour stayed in power and is very likely to reverse if they follow through on the promises in their manifesto..

Get what you're saying, got to admit don't know all that much about it, but the graph always seems to go higher more when a conservatives are in (1990-1997 and then 2010-2016).

I understand what the cons say about not being able to have what we cannot afford, but like I saw mentioned the other day - they found something like £850 billion to bail out the banks. I'd rather that be spent on NHS or scrapping Uni fees - what's more important, peoples lives and education, or another bank?

I have a feeling the growth in debt after 2008 may have something to do with the banking crisis and the subsequent global recession. It's what you'd expect to happen and there was a fair amount of leeway given the national debt as % of GDP was low.

It probably wouldn't have looked much different if the conservatives had been in power. Given that austerity hasn't exactly been a resounding success it could well have been worse.

The economy was not in great shape after the financial crisis, we had a period of real recession and was living in the shadow of a double dip recession. Greece was in financial crisis from 2012 and for a few years the market was paying a lot of attention on whether governments can pay back their debt. You can say that the country has suffered from Tory austerity domestically, but they did steer the country through some turbulent years.

Very simply put, austerity is an easy sell but a very expensive long-term strategy: there are less outgoings because the state is reducing that but by doing that incomes fall, because if that profits fall, and taxation falls as well. The state will then have to borrow more money to make up the shortfall.A country's finances are emphatically not like that of a household (only spend what you earn); it needs to invest in consumer confidence, jobs and education.A famous example is Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal).The way the last two Consertave Governments have handled the financial crisis has contributed to Britain's very slow recovery from the Global Finacial Crisis (especially compared with other European countries): www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/04/george-osborne-s-cunning-plan-how-chancellors-austerity-narrative-has-harmed

What nick said. And that's why you can't really draw a chart of what the debt would have been under Labour spending plans - you can predict what the rise in government spending would have been but you can't predict what would have happened to tax receipts. When the Tories announced their spending plans in 2010, there​ was a whole spate of letters to the papers from groups of economists saying don't cut, or at least don't cut right now. I don't think there was consensus but there was probably a majority of economists who thought debt would fall faster if the cuts didn't follow on directly after the financial crisis. And that was just about debt, nothing about the human impact of cutting services and benefits and wages at a point where unemployment and underemployment were likely to rise.

Are you joking? I had to do a fairly basic stats module in my first year of my undergrad and the most interesting part of that was learning just how stats can be twisted to mean anything you want.

It's interesting even looking at cutting the deficit which the Tories have done and which was entirely necessary but that this isn't as straightforward as you'd imagine either as it's calculated as a percentage of GDP which of course fluctuates too.

Thanks everyone, I'm definitely learning a lot on this thread which was the point

That rate of debt growth would not have continued, because the banks only needed to be bailed out once.

But that was just once, it went up in big jumps for 3 years on the trot? As far as I am aware, Labour didn't have any big 'austerity' plans in their manifesto in 2010 so HOW exactly would they have slowed the increase?

Given that austerity hasn't exactly been a resounding successI agree that it's had some horrible effects on some of the benefits that people are entitled to and left some people in absolute poverty. But from a fiscal point of view, looking at that chart, it did what it set out to do in reducing the growth of debt?

And this is what I really struggle with - on an individual level, austerity is fucking shit and has some horrific stories of people's lives being absolutely ruined. On the other hand, how do we become a 'sustainable' country in terms of debt?? We have to do something but I'm not sure Labour's 'everything for everyone' policy is good / believable in the long term.

AFAIU, the more we borrow, the more interest we have to pay to service the debt, so there is a difference. Also how cheaply a country can borrow depends partly on how much confidence the market has in it to repay the money when necessary. The more we borrow, the more risky we would be seen as a borrower. If the economy is growing and everything is hunky dory then maybe nothing will happen we will carry on. However if there is another crisis or if the debt keeps mounting one day someone will notice and we might lost the ability to borrow money cheaply and we will not be able to sustain our spending and we risk Austerity Super.